


Ingrith

by MiriamKenneath



Category: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Genre: Backstory, First Meetings, Gen, Hints of Ingrith/Maleficent UST, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiriamKenneath/pseuds/MiriamKenneath
Summary: On the becoming of Queen Ingrith.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Ingrith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kathryne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathryne/gifts).



She was royalty.

And as befitting royalty, she should have lived in a glittering palace surrounded by manicured gardens. She should have been clothed in precious jewels and beautiful gowns. She should have been celebrating her eighteenth birthday with a costume ball and lavish banquet.

Instead, she lived in a drafty castle, and the gardens were dry and dead. Her gowns were old, ill-fitting and fast turning to rags. Her eighteenth birthday had come and gone entirely uncommemorated. No balls, no banquets. There wasn’t nearly enough to food going spare for that.

Ingrith was royalty – yes, that was true. But what did it matter? Her people were starving and sick, and they were starting to die. What if they _all_ died? What good were royals if they had no one to rule?

She pleaded with her father the king. ‘Look yonder over to the Moors. The lands of the fair folk stay fertile and hale whilst our kingdom becomes drought-ridden and diseased. Yet the fair folk guard their borders jealously and flourish in solitary abundance. If they will not come to our aid when we are in need, why not take what we need by force?’

But her father the king was unmoved. ‘Would you have me start a war when our people are already dying? No, my child,’ he told her firmly. ‘You will put such notions aside – they are folly.’

And like a good daughter she did as she was bade…at least for a time. Until, that is, her beloved brother was the next of fall ill.

‘I’ve already lost my mother to the sickness; I refuse to lose my brother, too!’

The wise woman looked up from her bedside vigil and frowned, her eyes with their deep crow’s feet following Ingrith as she paced agitatedly back and forth, back and forth. She was very, very old. She’d been there for Ingrith’s birth, and her brother’s, and their father’s. She’d been there for their mother’s death as well.

Now, she’d come to see Ingrith’s brother. ‘There is little that can be done, Your Highness,’ said the wise woman as she rubbed goose fat onto the prince’s chapped, pallid lips. ‘He has the Starving Sickness. He needs the bounty of the autumn harvest – the sunfruit and the summer squash. But the crops have failed for the fifth year, Your Highness, and our orchards are dead. There is neither sunfruit nor squash for him. Not even for a prince.’

Ingrith halted her pacing. ‘But there are sunfruit trees growing in the Moors. I can see their yellow tops from the castle balcony.’

‘You cannot take from the fair folk what rightly belongs to them, You Highness,’ said the wise woman. ‘Ill luck, ’twould be, and _she_ will not allow it.’

Ingrith cared not for the wise woman’s peasant superstitions. This was her dear brother’s life at stake! She went straight from her brother’s bedside to her father the king and pleaded with him once more:

‘If we invade the Moors, we could save him! Is he not your heir? Do you not _care_?!’ she cried.

Yet her father the king refused her again. ‘No, Ingrith,’ he said. He was short with her; his temper was rising. He yelled. _‘You will put aside these foolish notions!’_

Ingrith bowed her head in obedience, seemingly chastised. But deep inside of her, a plan was hatched.

No one saw her leave the castle under cover of darkness, and she met no one – not a single, living soul – on her way. She journeyed on foot the entire night, and as the first rays of dawn broke over the horizon, Ingrith crossed into the Moors.

The air smelled so _alive_ ; she’d never seen so much _green_. It was making her sneeze uncontrollably. But stuffy, runny nose notwithstanding, she didn’t dawdle; she’d come for a specific purpose, and she would not be distracted from it.

The sunfruit trees were not difficult to locate. To Ingrith’s delight, they were covered in ripe fruit, enough to feed ten armies. She filled the basket she’d brought with as many sunfruits as she could reasonably carry.

The sunfruit were heavy, and though Ingrith tried to hurry out so as not to get caught, they slowed her down. It seemed to be taking her an unnaturally long time to get back. The sun was already sinking low onto the horizon, and the boundary between her kingdom and the Moors seemed an impossible distance away. She huffed and puffed beneath the weight of her burden; she took a deep breath; something, a flower’s pollen, perhaps, tickled the inside of her nose – she stopped in her tracks, threw her head back and _sneezed_ –

‘Halt.’

There was a fairy standing in front of her, blocking her path where there had been no one a moment ago. The fairy was not small like most fair folk. She (for the fairy was undoubtedly female) was tall, as tall as Ingrith, with soft locks of chestnut hair. She looked young and almost human…were it not for her giant feathered wings and her monstrous, helldemon horns.

‘You will return what you have taken,’ said the she-fairy. Her face was smooth, untroubled, clear as a still pool of spring water. _Beautiful. Were she not fair folk but gentlelady, I would want_ – but Ingrith suppressed the thought before it could take full form. The she-fairy was powerful and knew her power.

Ingrith trembled but stood her ground. ‘My brother has the Starving Sickness. He needs this sunfruit to get better. Besides’ – Ingrith motioned towards the direction of the grove of sunfruit trees she’d visited – ‘you have more than you need.’

‘They are not yours to take.’

Ingrith screamed as the basket was torn from her hands by green, smoky magic. The she-fairy’s eyes flashed, and the basket rose high up into the air and upended its contents onto the ground. The sunfruit smashed down to the earth, broken open, fragrant flesh and juices splattered everywhere. _Wasted_.

‘Why did you – ?!’ Ingrith felt herself go cold, then hot. She couldn’t believe the waste. That had been perfectly good food! She was choking on her fury. How could they?! How _dare_ they?! How dare _she?!?!_

‘You will leave, and you will never return,’ said the she-fairy –

And then Ingrith felt herself thrown backwards. She may have blacked out briefly. But when she was herself again, she found herself lying on bare, barren ground…on her kingdom’s side of the Moors. Directly in front of her, a bramble patch now grew, twisted and thick, thorns like knives. Ingrith would not be able to reenter to the Moors, not even if she wanted to.

 _She_ had made certain of that.

It took Ingrith another whole night of travel on foot to return to the castle. She told no one where she’d been, and no one thought to ask. Her brother was on his deadbed; their minds were elsewhere.

Less than a week later, her brother passed from this earth. Ingrith donned her black mourning garb and said nothing. She did not plead with her father the king to invade the Moors a third time. She did not, in fact, ever mention the fair folk or the Moors to him ever again.

She would not rely upon weak men to wreak revenge upon the fair folk, she decided. Someday – she didn’t know when – but _someday_ – she – Ingrith – would lead the army that conquered the fair folk _herself._


End file.
